DAY TWO - Afternoon and then some...

We made it through traffic and all the security check points to get to our gate at a comfortable pace. At the last minute I stopped to by some cinnamon candy, as the last thing I had consumed was coffee and I was starting to get an aftertaste. What could happen? How about I cracked a tooth! I think (or atleast I hope), it is a tooth that has had a root canal, so it dead and should be without pain. I know it has a huge filling in the middle of it, so I might be lucky. I was able to eat and drink cold and hot beverages without sensitivity on the plane, so I should be fine. I basically broke the corner of a molar.

The plane has a large group of students from a California HS going to Spain for a week, I guess it coordinates with their spring break. We have about six hours left on the flight.

I was right when I guessed that the meal will be chicken or something else. I had the something else. I also tried a Warsteiner, not bad.

I’m too big for my seat. Not in width, but “girth?” My laptop has a good size footprint so when I put it on the tiny table, its so close to me I have to lean the screen forward. So it is weird looking at the text from above. I’m praying the Belgian fellow who speaks eight languages doesn’t decide to recline quickly. I think he’s having fun flirting with the 17 year old girls.

Their chaperone is sitting across the aisle from me and he had told the stewardess no alcohol for the kids. A boy in the row right on front of the teacher asked for wine when they offered it and the teacher busted him. The stewardess asked him three times if he was with the group and he told her no each time, so she poured, and then the teacher reached over and took the glass away. His classmate couldn’t stop laughing.

The in-flight movie is Dreamer, it is a ‘horse’ movie so I’m not that interested. My battery isn’t strong enough to last a movie, so I’m limiting myself to work instead of entertainment. [I ended up watching the last half anyway] Maybe I can recharge in Frankfurt during our layover.

George got SKYPE working this morning on his computer. It’s a service that lets you make phone calls over the internet to other SKYPE users, FREE! Our jet actually has wireless service, but for a price. $9.95 for 1 hour or $29.95 for entire flight. I guess he dropped a few bucks because we had his headset on and was talking to someone a few minutes ago. That is some pretty cool technology. George and Andy are Mac users. Oh, I’m delivering two used laptops to Tajikistan, one for my partner teacher and one for use with the CPS system. During our pre-trip emails, those guys found out and each of them is also bringing their previous laptops to donate to someone too!

All my luggage comes in at around 82 kg, and we are limited to 20kg, with it being like $2 per extra kg, so I am hoping they cut me some slack when we board that last flight. The previous teacher said they didn’t charge him coming in, but charged him going out. That’s around $120 if they do hit me up. [Andy and I checked in as a pair, so they alotted us 40kg, but my stuff was 75kg, so I paid about $70 to get the stuff in]

Will update the story with pictures shortly!

Day Two - Good morning.

Its 6:20 in Cali and I jut finished my shower. When my next one will be???

According to our briefing yesterday, these are the things I am likely miss while in Tajikistan (besides my family):


Toilets that you sit on! I think this is a hole in the ground kind of place.
I do here they have a RC Cola plant in the country though!
I'm taking this role with me!
They have sinks, but apparently the stuff that comes out is not CLEAR!

It was decided we didn't need a fancy breakfast, but a solid breaksfast, so I think we'll all end up eating at Denny's, as it just down the block. I think this is where I really enjoy a classic English breakfast with all the meats, beans and such. I hate pork-n-beans, but it England, the same bean is served as part of breakfast, but in a slightly different base, almost like a ketchup with a little kick. This is what a typical FULL ENGLISH BREAKFAST looks like:


I really got into eating them! That was last July, haven't ate a bean since (unless it was in a burrito).

Day One - Afternoon

After lunch our local contact, Tatiana, came to get us so we could go to RI-SOL local office and get our tickets and meet a teacher who went last year for a presentation and Q&A session. This was great, as we got the real low down. George and I didn't look at our agenda, we want to be surprised. They have Andy committed to a lot, so he looked to see what they signed him up for. I'm only scheduled to do two different presentations. The first one will be on science resources on the internet. I'm halfway through putting it together. I'm only to do it once. I'm scheduled to do a presentation for students twice, it will be on letterboxing. I brought supplies to get them started!

Here's an interesting photo, depending on where you go. This is a local homeless man camped out in front of a 7-11. I was practicing my covert photography, came out better than I expected.



Here is a view of our little hotel. Rooms start at $60, free coffee and tea!

Remember, you can click any picture for a larger view!
Off to dinner and another adventure, hopefuly no exploding peppers on this time (ask me about the exploding pepper when you see me!)

I've been up 12 hours and its just 1pm here!

My day started at 3am. My alarm was set for 3:30, but I woke up so I said 'what the heck' and got in the shower.

Here's the current exchange rates, so I can compare 3 weeks later. Also, gas was around $2.71 on average when I left!

The famous landmark of LAX airport.

Something I learned. If you take one of these
up an escalator (you should really use an elevator), don't let the weight shift to the single wheel up front at the top of the escalator, you end up flipping it and putting all your bags on the ground. As I said, it was something I LEARNED, not saw.


Met my traveling companions, Andy and George, I think we should get along marvelously. We had lunch at Westwood Brewing Company, who doesn't brew anything, anymore! None of us left anything on the plate.

We were are staying (A) and where we ate lunch (E)

We have our indoctrination coming up shortly...more later.

Vernier helps out too!

I was able to get extra posters and handouts to take to Tajikistan, but another vendor came through with a probe for taking temperatures. It is called a Go-Temp! If you are a teacher, contact them and they'll send one to your school!
We'll definately always know the temperature in Isfara, Tajikistan now!

The biggest gift of all is from the great people at E-instruction! Its a surprise, so I''ll give details. They also gave me so nice litle trinkets for the kids over there.

Just five more days!

I met some really wonderful teachers over the last three days, and I hope they able to use in their classroom any tidbits I was able to give them!
And a shout-out to my newest acquaintance Grace! Enjoy your future visit to Houston.

Science Convention

I am in Anaheim, California at the NSTA convention. Our hotel is directly across the street from Disney! I hope to find the time to visit, as I have never been to this Disney.

Thanks to the people at http://www.iscienceproject.com/ I have a set of HOBO data loggers to take and leave in Tajikistan with my partner school! We'll have our students do about three temperature monitoring experiments lasting around two weeks each. Each kit contains two loggers. So I was thinking of having a experiment where temperatures are taken every two hours. One time they could have one in shaded area, and one in open area. 2nd time, one on dark surface, one on light. 3rd setup would be having one in air, and one submerged in water (seeing how water temperature should be slower to change in water). First readings would be our daily zero point and the change ever two hours (our delta) would be the values and we can see if there is any correlation between our temperatures and theirs because we are both at around the same latitude.

If you think you could find a project to do with your students, you can go to their website and sign up for a loaner for 2 months! You can earn them by submitting a lesson. I haven't looked, but I think they have 300 projects available. They are really nice bunch of people to work with! Check them out!

Wide Photo of our school

I used software to put 5 photos together

Click the image to see big version


This is the school from above

Miles and Kilometers

14 Days until departure.

Click any picture for larger image

Countdown begins

April 13th I leave for Tajikistan. 18 days

I got turned down by Fund For Teachers for my Italian Summer Exploration, so my wife and I are going to choose another destination. We try to go abroad every summer.
We are narrowed down currently to Spain (Madrid or Barcelona), Ireland, Scotland or Australia. We like the idea of a english speaking country, since we enjoyed London so much last summer.

We both speak a little spanish, so we should be able to survive in Spain. We did well in Paris and Prague where we didn't speak local language at all, thank goodness almost everyone who wanted us to spend money with them, could speak some english!

Fashion Shoot - Project

The kids at our school have a variety of styles, but there isn't any one name for many of thier styles, and they mix and match items commonly. In the two days before the photographs, the temperature had dropped over 30 degrees fahrenheit, as our winter weather was approaching, and some of the students started wearing coats and jackets.

The following twenty images are the students in their normal clothes on an average (cool weather) day. At our school, students are required to have their school identification card worn, so you will see many wearing them around their necks in the photos.

All the students had fun being fashion models and hope that you enjoy viewing the images.